The face of email marketing is changing. Everyday entrepreneurs’ understanding of what email marketing is, however, is not quite keeping up. Too many entrepreneurs believe that if they are sending out an email newsletter, then they are “doing” email marketing. While you should certainly send out regular content, this isn’t even scratching the surface of what you could be doing.
My company, Do Good Design Co., recently performed an overhaul of our client, InstaNatural’s, email marketing line-up. For any e-commerce brand, the emails being used by InstaNatural should be a foundation for your marketing. From this foundation, you can get really creative about more opportunities to use email to engage with your audience in relevant and profitable ways.
Pollen designed several variations of some of these to be tested, but the base list consists of:
1. Newsletter
This is the standard, regular email that we’re all used to. For InstaNatural, we designed a template that includes a few different flexible content sections. The email was programmed in such a way that content areas can be mixed-and-matched through their email service provider when they construct their weekly email.
2. Special Announcement
We also created a template that is specifically used when InstaNatural wants to make a special announcement outside of the weekly email schedule. This can be used for product announcements, contests, giveaway and promotions. It can also be targeted to specific lists and segments.
3. Welcome
The welcome email is all-too-often overlooked by digital entrepreneurs. InstaNatural was very smart in having us design a few variations of welcome emails which go out to people based on how they subscribed. For example, if a user ended up on the list because she made a purchase, she will receive a different welcome email from someone who opted-in through the signup form. Welcome emails should be personalized, warm, and well… welcoming! Subscribers should feel like they are part of the club and that they should look forward to receiving your emails. You should also include some more details about what they can expect, and how frequently. This will help reduce unsubscribe rates. In addition, it’s often a great idea to include a discount code or other perk as a “thank you” for subscribing.
4. Browse Abandonment
A browse abandonment email automatically goes out to a subscriber who was checking out products on your site, but didn’t end up adding any to her cart. If you get the right technical setup, you can populate this email with the exact products that she was looking at, and even offer a discount if you want!
5. Cart Abandonment
A cart abandonment email is similar to a browse abandonment email, in that is goes to a subscriber who was checking out your site, but didn’t purchase. In this case, however, the user actually added a product or products to her cart. That is a huge signal of purchase intent, and with a little nudging, you can often encourage the user to return and complete the purchase!
6. Leave a Review
If reviews are an important part of your digital strategy, then it’s a good idea to set up an automated reminder email to go out to purchasers at a reasonable interval after they’ve received their products. You may also want to include some sort of incentive for them to leave a review. When done well, this makes customers feel valued and cared for.
7. Product Re-purchase (“replenishment”)
Product re-purchase emails are a great tool for building repeat business! If you sell products that need to be repurchased after use, such as skincare products in the case of InstaNatural, then you should determine the average amount of time that each product lasts, then automatically send a re-purchase reminder after that time period has passed since purchase.
8. Non-purchaser
Non-purchaser emails are simply messages that go out to someone who has somehow ended up on your email list, but has never purchased from you. The fact that they signed up shows some indication that they may be interested in your products. As wonderful as you are, sometimes people simply forget about you! A little “hello” sometimes goes a long way.
9. Order Confirmations
We broadly place a handful of emails in this bucket, including order confirmation, shipment notifications and order tracking emails. These emails are a great way to build in a feeling of customer service and warmth, appropriate to your brand tone. They’re also a great opportunity to promote cross-sells and ask customers to share their purchases via social media!
Well, do you?
How many of these emails are you currently sending to customers? How personalized ad targeted are they? Do they take advantage of cross-sells, up-sells, and sharing? We’d love to chat about how you can fill in the gaps in your email marketing strategy to squeeze out some more ROI from this very effective marketing channel.
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